Art and Artifice (6 page)

Something was indeed moving there, and Emily
fancied she caught a glimpse of russet hair, as if he’d lost his
cap in his hurry to escape. Excitement coursed through her, and she
could feel Daphne’s grip tighten on her arm. Their footsteps
quickened.

“Pretend we are having a conversation,”
Daphne murmured, “so he won’t suspect we’re on to him.”

“You could not ask for a finer day,” Emily
said obligingly as they closed in on him. She hoped Daphne was the
only one besides her who heard the tension in the tone.

“Unseasonably warm,” Daphne agreed, gazed
focused on their quarry. He seemed to be crouched down, as if to
spy on them. The bushes rustled with his movement.

Emily froze, heart pounding. What would he
do, knowing he’d been caught? What would he say? Her fingers went
to the curls at the side of her straw bonnet as if they needed some
anchor.

Or wanted her to primp.

She dropped her hand and straightened her
spine. She was not about to primp, for James Cropper or Lord Robert
or any other fellow. She merely wanted to know what business he had
around the Townsend home or her.

“Say something,” Daphne hissed to her.
“You’re so brave. Confront him.”

Emily knew she should. She was the daughter
of the duke, after all. She should stand tall, demand that he come
out, order him to explain himself. She had had no trouble demanding
the truth from him last night or today. Why couldn’t she open her
mouth now?

The bushes rustled again, more forcefully
this time, and Emily took a step back. Her fingers clutched
Daphne’s arm so tightly she thought she might break Daphne’s bones.
Daphne was just as frozen.

“I cannot recall Lord Snedley discussing the
finer points of stalking a gentleman through the park,” she
whispered to Emily. “What shall we do?”

Something large and powerful shifted its
weight, and Emily sucked in a breath. Eyes wide, Daphne removed
Emily’s fingers from her arm and dropped a curtsey.

“Forgive me, sir,” she said to the bush. “How
are you this fine afternoon?”

Emily stared at her.

Mr. Cropper was not nearly so civil. He
growled! Emily took another step back in alarm, pulling Daphne with
her. The bushes were shoved aside, and before Emily could cry out,
a furry body launched itself at them. The creature hit Daphne in
the chest, tearing her away from Emily as Daphne careened backward
to land on her rump in the dirt of the path.

Emily rushed to her rescue, but it was too
late. Daphne surrendered herself to a very wet kiss.

“Down!” she commanded, and the overgrown
terrier obediently climbed off her and lay at her side. An elderly
footman who had obviously been taking it for a walk hurried up,
red-faced.

“I’m so sorry, Miss. He slipped the lead. Are
you all right?”

“Fine,” Daphne said, accepting his hand to
allow her to rise. “Dogs love me. I hope shortly to be able to say
the same about the gentlemen.”

Emily shook her head. Her hand was on her
chest, and she felt her heart still pounding its wild beat.
Glancing around, she saw no sign of Mr. Cropper.

But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t catch him,
or Lord Robert, the next time. It seemed they needed more cunning
to catch the fox in the eleven days left to them.

* * *

Jamie watched from the edge of the park as
Lady Emily and her friend disengaged from the dog and returned to
the carriage. She’d warned him she intended to take matters into
her own hands, but he hadn’t thought she’d be quite so determined
as to stalk him through the park. Or be so good at it. If the dog
hadn’t presented itself, he might have been caught, right and
tight.

Of course, perhaps she’d only been visiting
her betrothed. Jamie had been watching the front of the house since
leaving her, and Lord Robert had yet to make an appearance. Odd
that he hadn’t deigned to receive the woman he loved enough to
marry.

But then, he doubted Lord Robert was capable
of that tender emotion. His father the former Lord Wakenoak
certainly hadn’t been. Jamie was living proof of that.

He circled around to the house again, settled
himself for a long wait. Lord Robert had to trip up sometime, and
he wanted to be there, manacles in hand, when it happened. But if
he hadn’t laid eyes on the fellow by the time the sun set, he fully
intended to stop by the Duke of Emerson’s fine townhouse. Lady
Emily was playing with fire, and he didn’t like the thought of her
getting burned. Perhaps a word of warning would be enough.

But he wouldn’t have wagered on it.

Emily saw nothing further of James Cropper as
the carriage rolled away from the square. With her aunt nodding
across from them, she wasn’t even comfortable discussing the matter
with Daphne. That didn’t stop her friend from trying.

“Why do you think he was there?” she
whispered, eyes watching Lady Minerva’s bowed head. The peacock
feather in her bonnet had fallen lower, threatening to touch her
pointed nose each time her chin came up.

“He’s a Bow Street Runner,” Emily reminded
her, equally watchful. “He could be investigating anyone on the
square.”

“Oh.” Daphne sighed, shoulders slumping. “I
must be reading too many of Ariadne’s manuscripts. I was so looking
forward to the fact that you might have an admirer.”

“Admirer is not the word for a man who
watches a woman from behind bushes,” Emily said.

“Yes, of course,” Daphne said. “Lord Snedley
calls them adventurers.”

Emily was less and less amused by the lord’s
writing. “I doubt Mr. Cropper is an admirer or an adventurer. He
had a more important purpose for being there; count on it. But at
the moment, it is our purpose that concerns me. How are we to learn
anything about Lord Robert if we never know where to look for
him?”

“Perhaps the others had better luck,” Daphne
suggested with an encouraging smile.

But when carriage stopped at the Courdebas’s
home in Wallace Square, the family butler reported that Ariadne had
not yet returned home. The best Emily could do was to leave Daphne
with the promise that the four of them would regroup in the
morning.

The next step in the investigation Ariadne
had planned, Emily knew, was to interview Lord Robert’s servants.
Emily didn’t have much hope there, as she hadn’t even been allowed
into the Townsend townhouse. Besides, there was a question of
loyalty.

No, it would be better to question someone
well-versed in the way of the
ton
, someone who had the ear
of servants and aristocracy alike, someone she trusted.

In a word, Warburton.

“Have you heard any rumors about the Townsends?”
Emily asked her butler later that afternoon as Warburton served her
tea on a silver tray in the quiet of her room. His Grace had not
yet returned home, and Lady Minerva claimed to be taking a
restorative nap, though what she’d done that was of such exertion
she required a nap, Emily wasn’t sure.

Warburton had already placed a tasseled
pillow at her back where she sat on an upholstered chair near the
cozy fire and set a black footstool with gold fringe at her feet.
His brows drew together as he straightened from spreading a damask
napkin across her lap.

“Rumors about the Townsends?” he said. The
silver teapot flashed as he picked it up to pour her a cup. “I’m
sure I couldn’t say, your ladyship.”

She refused to let him get away so easily.
“Couldn’t or won’t? If you will not tell me, Mr. Warburton, I will
imagine the worst.” She eyed him as he set the pot back down. “Does
Lord Robert beat his servants?”

Warburton drew himself up. “Certainly not.
You must remember, they serve his brother, and the present Lord
Wakenoak would not countenance such behavior toward the staff, even
though he has been a bit lax in paying them.”

Emily selected a lemon biscuit and chewed
slowly. So Lord Robert’s brother stiffed the staff. Reprehensible,
but nothing she could lay at Robert’s door, unless their lack of
funds had something to do with him. She swallowed and cocked her
head. “I fear Lord Robert gambles.”

“Likely less than his father before him.”

That was most unhelpful. She had no idea how much
the former Lord Wakenoak enjoyed the cards.

“Did his father gamble a great deal?”

“Perhaps more than is generally considered
wise.”

Interesting
, she thought, taking a sip of the
chamomile. Too bad Warburton’s tidbit offered her nothing in her
quest to discredit Lord Robert. She eyed her butler as he towered
over her. “Does Lord Robert keep a mistress?”

He met her gaze by looking down his
impressive nose. “That is not a conversation His Grace would want
me to have with you.”

Her cheeks heated. He was quite right; it was
a bold question. “But it is a conversation I must have,” she
protested, “if I am to understand Lord Robert.”

“Then I suspect it is a conversation you
should have with Lord Robert.”

He had a point. How would Robert react if she
mentioned the matter? She pictured his stunned look and smiled.

Of course, that imagined look was no more
stunned than the one on her maid Mary’s face when Emily began the
same conversation as she changed to paint.

Mary was dark-haired and darker-eyed and a
little on the pale side, or perhaps Emily just terrified her.
Warburton had confided that Mary had been His Grace’s upstairs maid
in London until she agreed to take on extra duties while Emily was
there. His Grace didn’t apparently see the need to hire Emily a
maid even though she was out of school. She could only hope that
was not because he thought she was going to marry in a few days,
and then she would be Lord Robert’s problem.

“Rumors?” Mary said, fair skin turning even
paler.

Perhaps if she didn’t look directly at the
woman. Emily turned to let the maid release the tapes that held her
day dress closed. “Yes, rumors, stories. Gossip.”

“Well,” Mary said, tugging at the tapes,
“everyone seems quite glad Lord Robert settled down.”

“Settled down from what?” Emily asked with a
frown.

Mary’s fingers seemed to slow. “Oh, I’m sure
I couldn’t say, your ladyship.”

Not her too. This would never do. “It’s quite
all right to speak freely, Mary,” she said as gently as she could.
“I won’t scold, I promise.”

Mary sighed as she finished with the gown and
pulled it off, her breath brushing Emily’s bare skin. “It’s just
that I want to do a good job, your ladyship. Being a lady’s maid
has always been my dream. My sister’s one, you see, for an actress
at Convent Garden.”

“I understand having a dream,” Emily said,
turning to face her once again. “Lord Robert is currently
threatening mine. I wish to paint, not marry someone who cares
nothing for me. So, please, tell me, why did he have to settle
down?”

Mary clutched the gown to her chest and
lowered her voice, as if afraid the silk-covered walls might
overhear. “He was a wild fellow, your ladyship. The other servants
were talking about how he had a girl in every village around the
family’s country estate. Even dallied with a merchant’s daughter
here in town and a married lady.”

Oh, the cad! Hadn’t she said he was up to no
good? She ought to be furious that anyone would think she should
marry him!

Mary must have noticed that Emily had
reddened, for the maid hurried to fetch one of her painting
dresses, a sturdy cotton print in navy and green with long sleeves
and a high neck. Even though Emily was careful to wear an apron
over the gown, she could still see remnants of past painting. That
crimson was from
The Battle of Hastings
, she was certain.
There had been a great deal of blood in that one. And the
saffron-colored streak was from
The Battle of the Nile
, as
it matched the stripe along the side of Nelson’s ship.

“Now, don’t you worry, your ladyship,” Mary
said, pulling the gown over Emily’s head and setting about
fastening it up. “He chose you, didn’t he? That proves he intends
to do right.”

Perhaps. But it might also prove that he’d
simply bowed to pressure from his family. What better way to turn
respectable than to marry the daughter of an old family friend,
particularly when she was the daughter of a duke? There was nothing
more respectable than marrying the daughter of a duke. So just how
tame was Lord Robert Townsend now?

She considered the matter while she painted
before dinner. Unfortunately, she quickly realized that Mary had
handed her nothing she could use. Obviously His Grace knew all
about Lord Robert’s reformation. He’d said he’s been discussing the
wedding with Robert’s brother and Lord Robert. So she still had
nothing she could tell her father that would change his mind and
free her from the engagement.

And it wasn’t as if she cared how Robert
dallied. She really didn’t want him to fall in love with her. But
she’d thought, she’d hoped, that if she married, her husband would
see more in her than merely her father’s consequence and good name.
Was it not possible that someone might enjoy her company,
appreciate her art, want to be with her simply for herself?

It was a bold thought, she knew. Some might
even call it daring. Many of the marriages among the aristocracy
had been made to unite families, increase funds. Love was a
fanciful ideal. She’d been known to scoff at it herself, until
she’d seen the blazing light of the love Lord Brentfield had
conceived for Miss Alexander. Could it be that someone would look
at her that way, as if she were the very air he breathed?

That was quite fanciful enough. She forced
herself to think about painting instead. She had been itching to
start another battle scene, this time from the War of the Roses.
She could just imagine all those feudal fighters in the colors of
Lancaster and York. At least their roses weren’t pink.